Pink troubles

I continued working on the Villa Mira lady's skirt, but hit the breaks when I reached the bow it is a very bright pink colour I don't like and so avoid whenever possible. I am not familiar with the pink palette. So when it dawned on me that the 600 and 601 shades of DMC look identical, I became uncertain. Is it the lighting, did I make a mistake when I wound my floss on the bobbins, or are those colours simply that close to each other? Am I even gonna see any difference on the stitching? I didn't have Internet access for most of the holidays. I thought about contacting my stitchy friends, but I didn't wanna disrupt their family holiday time with such trivial things. So I jut put it aside and worked on my other projects. After all, there is no shortage of those! Here's how far I got:

Look back at Xmas

These two boxes are gifts I have made for stitchy friends because I knew they would appreciate them. Now that they have their presents, I can show you all! The chart for the fall leaves is a downloadable freebie from the DMC site, the other one with the blackwork, or in this case, bluework, is a chart from an old World of Cross Stitching magazine. Sorry for the bad quality, these are cell phone pictures.

UFOs dusted off

Sorry for the absence, I had to spend a longer-than-usual period at my parents because my dad was briefly in hospital and they needed my help. Then, after coming home, I just laid back feeling sorry for myself for having to carry and stack up 10 quintals of wood on my own. Until I remembered that my parents do it every few months.

Anyway, I took a look around my stash and found some abandoned projects I have decided to work on. I also did some motivational decorating, that is, I hung up a couple of my kits and charts on the wall to remind me what I wanted to stitch. Feasting Frenzy is almost ready, I just need to do the backstitch. I have two Dimensions Gold kits only an afternoon's work away from completion. The Permin butterfly is nearly done too. But somehow I am unable to do those. So I pulled Victorian Elegance from the pile. I was very disappointed with my starting stitches. I may gonna frog and re-do them in the end. I started working on it a few years ago, when I had less experience, and my stitches look too uneven to me. Right now I just wanna carry on and see how much floss I will have left at the end. 

The other project is Butterflies and Brambles by DMC. I just love this one, very easy on the eyes.

Stitchy update

Do you remember this adorable Somebunny To Love kit I bought last year (with two others)? I finally decided to take the plunge and despite my ongoing long term projects, start a new piece, one that I really love and enjoy, and that is gonna give me quick results to boost my self-esteem. I spent about a month on it, and the progress is not bad considering I still have some LnL and Dimensions WIPs that I have also been working on. Do you know what's funny? I never realised this kit had some variegated floss in it until I got to the flowers! Well, better late then never, right?

I also have some minor Keresztszemes Magazin finishes, and I am working on the next ones already. I must say, I hated the palm tree. It is full of fractional stitches, which are okay on linen but not on aida. The outcome is rather pretty though.

Cuddling cute with some glitches...

(Intermission: you know, sometimes I hate Blogger with a passion. What is the sense in asking if I want to align my pictures to the left if they will all end up crammed next to each other? Seriously, Wordpress is much more user friendly, I only blog here because all my friends do. Back to our regularly scheduled program.)

I have finished Cuddling Cat! Isn't she adorable? Usually I take my time backstitching because, in all honesty, I hate it. But this time my needle seemed to soar through the fabric and I have finished backstitching in a single afternoon!

As adorable this design is, I did turn up my nose at a few things. Certain points of the chart were designed like it was the first time attempt of an amateur and not the product of a major company. I hope I will not commit copyright infringement, but I scanned parts of my working copy to show you what I mean.

Can you see the signs I marked with the arrows? The three dots at number 3 can barely be seen, but I spotted them. But someone with a bit more poor eyesight may miss it. Why not pick another sign to make it more obvious?

Worse yet, at arrows number 1 and 2 the backstitch is running in the same direction as the \ that identifies the colour. It's absolutely not obvious if there really is a \ or the space should be left blank. I had to use a magnifier lens on the cover design to see that yes, there is indeed a stitch underneath both lines of backstitch. Again, this kind of problems may happen to a newbie designer, but seriously, DMC?

Pre-weekend progress

This is how far I got with Cuddling Cat. I'm not sure if I will be able to work on it this weekend. I will be visiting my baby as usual. I take it with me, but my stitching takes second place. If my daughter lets me, I will continue, but if not, I won't mind. I'll let you know what happened.

See you on Monday!

Kitteh taking shape

I scanned Cuddling Cat last night but it was so late I put the fabric in the scanner the wrong side down, so I scanned the back first. LOL! No problem, at least I can show you the back of my stitching. Still not as neat as I wish, but I am getting there!

If I think about my first cross stitch kit, I am mildly ashamed of how ugly its back is. And the front too, if I want to be completely honest. At the time I was terribly proud of myself for doing such a good job, but with 10+ years of CS experience behind me, I cringe when I look at it. The top stitches on my Xs are in totally random direction, to name but one problem. And I can see some of the threads that I carried a long way through the fabric. Not pretty!

Still, it's my first stitched piece. As the matter of fact, that too was a DMC kit, Chloé Watering Flowers. And it's hanging on my wall for the rest of my life.

Back to Sarah Kay: I started filling the dots on the dress and I hate it! It messes up the back even more! I almost promised myself I will never do another design like this, but I already have another kit in my stash, and yes, her dress is covered in dots too!

*sigh*

Well, I think I'll just take some time to spend on other stitches before I start working on that one. My mom already requested a Dimensions design, which is a nice change because she ignored my hobby so far. If she ever said anything about it, it was how much money and time I spend on it that would be better, and a lot more rewarding, if I spent it on something else, like housework or finding a good job. But right now stitching is what I need most. I know you ladies will understand. We often joke about how stitching keeps us sane, but with my record of diagnosed psychological problems, it's a fact. Without cross stitch, I would be going mad like Michael Douglas in Falling Down.